So, what you’re saying is that if we want to be able to order pharmaceutical grade drugs with a minimum of eyebrow raising… we should start up a drug-testing laboratory?
Maybe you should start off by getting a PhD in forensic chemistry. then assuming your grades were good enough, you could become a professor at some research university studying the analysis of LSD. By that time, nobody would suspect your plan.
Maybe is bias, but I don’t imagine laboratories dedicated to drug-testing (i.e., testing urine for drugs) having personnel on staff with that level of expertise or integrity.
I would guess that your average drug testing facility is not testing for LSD, but I have no doubt that your highest level forensics lab is swimming in PhD’s.
Far easier to start grad school in neurochemistry, and do a rotation in a lab studying 5HT2A, or similar, receptors.
My ex did this, and somehow, unbeknownst to her, managed to spill a little LSD onto herself. All strictly legal, but she did not enjoy the subsquent tripping.
Nevertheless, it’s a little bit more than your average drug addict is willing to endure. I love the story though.
I’m proud to say I’ve got one degree separation from Albert Hoffman himself. I probably won’t meet him before he goes, but he’s still kicking in Zurich.
According to Wikipedia, LSD can be prescribed by physician in Hong Kong: link. Exactly what they would prescribe it for, I’m not certain, but there are a number of groups with research licenses who have legal access to LSD for researching treatments for various things… alcoholism has been researched in the past, and in recent years one popular use seems to be for cluster headaches (link .
I don’t think there’s anywhere in the world where LSD is available OTC. It’s probably for the best.
Okay, suppose you’re a Hongkonger with a prescription, license, and all the paperwork to legally take the drug. And you must take it every day.
You need to visit the States, where LSD is almost always illegal. Is there any exemption that would allow you to possess it?
Well, as described above, you can go to grad school for forensic chemistry 
Shouldn’t there be toxicologists somewhere doing lab testing with it? How else are they supposed to establish its presence in the bloodstream or urine or whatever?
Schedule 1 means high potential for abuse and no medical value. LSD doesn’t stop being schedule 1 in the US just because your hippie doctor in Hong Kong presribes it. America still considers it as having no medical value. I suppose they could try to get a DEA license and import license like everybody else. Whether foreign nationals can get DEA licenses based on their doctor’s prescription of LSD… I’m not a lawyer but my guess is “Fat chance in hell”.
As I understand, there’s no blood test for LSD. It’s detected either in the spinal fluid or by an excess of Grateful Dead stickers on your car. Hence it’s very unusual to drug-test anyone for LSD aside from lab animals.
Is having a sample of one’s spinal fluid taken as unpleasant as I imagine it to be?
“Hippie doctor”? :rolleyes:
In the more general case, what happens if a Schedule 1 drug is subsequently found to have medicinal value? Is there a procedure for removing a drug from Schedule 1?
Yes, a lumbar puncture is rather uncomfortable.
Hardly a likely case as the body quickly builds up a tolerance for LSD and they only way for it to be effective if used on a day to day basis is to increase the dose to fantastic proportions. That, and the fact that no matter what’s wrong with you, most if not all people would rather deal with their malady than be tripping for a few weeks.
I don’t think so… got a cite?
From all I’ve heard LSD tolerance builds up very quickly, though apparently it also drops quickly after a couple of days of non-use.
For example: Health Promotion | Brown University |
Can’t find a good study on this, though. I suspect that’s mainly because there haven’t been any in the last couple of decades. I’d be interested if anyone has more concrete information.
Hopefully you regard Erowid as a decent cite.
What you cited is an uncited primary source off Erowid. I trust absolutely nothing Erowid publishes as a primary source. It’s basically a bunch of urban legends, hearsay, and anecdotes cribbed off the internet. Granted, Erowid does have links to many good primary sources. Granted, hearsay is preferable to no information at all for the thousands of little-known compounds out there. But LSD is not one of those little-researched compounds, and thus Erowid is of little use unless it points us to something more reputable. That’s not to say you’re wrong, just to say bring another cite.
Very well then, how about Brown ?
From the link, bolding mine:
Because LSD users develop extreme tolerance to LSD rapidly, the drug cannot be abused for more than a few consecutive days, preventing the kind of physical and psychological dependence associated with other drugs. This tolerance usually goes away after a week or so of abstinence from the drug.
And see, *e.g., * Carino & Horita, “Rapid development of tolerance upon central injection of LSD,” Life Sciences, 1977 Jan 1;20(1):49-55
*and *